Keeping Watch on the City: IP Video Surveillance - Milestone

Milestone White Paper<strong>Keeping</strong> <strong>Watch</strong> on the City: IP Video Surveillance— A guide for public officials on the advantages of IP video surveillance for metropolitan surveillance.Case study: Police in Bellwood, Illinois,ensure city-wide public safety1. The ChallengeThe Chicago suburb Bellwood has more than 20,500 citizens and isadjacent to communities with high crime rates. Gang activities, guns,drugs, robberies, and even were potential threats to the safety of bothcitizens and police. Bellwood has a total of 60 sworn officers, and theyhave been receiving 28,000 emergency calls to ‘911’ yearly.2. The SolutionCurrent Technologies Corporation, a CertifiedMilestone Partner and Cisco Premium Partner,used a variety of different wirelesstechnologies to reach into neighborhoods andcompletely cover the town with a pure IP videosurveillance solution using IP networkcameras. Milestone XProtect Enterprisesoftware is the video management tool forscheduling the cameras, viewing and searchinglive and archived images, and exportingevidence for court proceedings. Police can viewvideo remotely on laptops in their cars beforeresponding to an incident.3. The AdvantagesPolice visibility has been multiplied, and thetotal overview allows them to be proactive andrespond faster to incidents. IP networking makes it is easy to movecameras or add more as needed, and allows integration withdeveloping technologies. Citizens, property and officers themselves aresafer and the town’s image has improved notably. In an article on thewell-being of 191 Illinois suburbs, Chicago magazine featured Bellwoodas one of the ten communities to watch, noting its visionary approachto thwart crime. A number of residents have contacted CurrentTechnologies Corporation and the police department with offers todonate money to purchase additional cameras in return for addingtheir properties to the growing security network.Page 15